Hunter
by Avalon76
Summary: [For a full second of hot breath, it is only the two of them, caught in a dance as deadly as poison on a knife poised above his heart.]
1. Mistakes

**Hunter**

By xannychan

Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender does not belong to me, but to Nickelodeon.

A/N: Inspired by my friend Syara. It's all her fault…

Warning: One-sided shounen-ai, as is my specialty. Creepy stalkers, spoilers of Secret of the Fire Nation abound.

_Chapter One:_

_Mistakes_

There were a few small mistakes on his part. But with a scar like that, of course it made perfect sense. And Jet could only assume what made sense at the time.

His assumptions weren't always right, he'll admit. And that was his first mistake.

He relives those few conversations in his head. "We need you," he had said. "The Freedom Fighters could use someone like you."

"I don't think you want someone like me on your little gang," Li had responded promptly.

Jet hadn't thought too much about that comment; that was his second mistake.

He had watched the steam curl up from the old man's tea. He had given Li one last look in the eyes before he turned around and walked away.

That look was his third mistake, because in that look he saw everything he needed to know.

Living in the woods didn't mean he didn't hear anything. They were fighting the Fire Nation, after all. Of course he had heard about the banished prince, on the hunt for the Avatar. He'd laughed at him when he heard about it.

But now he thinks back on the words he had said to Li once before.

"I knew who you were as soon as I saw your scar," he told him once. "You are an outcast..."

He wishes he had never understood in that moment, because it confirmed all of his fears.

Jet fell in love with a Firebender. That was his last mistake.

And Jet has never left a mistake unfixed.

---

Huzzah for Jet Li! I don't know what to do with this. I need a new plot bunny...


	2. Absolutes

**Hunter**

By xannychan

Disclaimer:   
Avatar: The Last Airbender belongs to Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino. Thank the geniuses.

A/N: This was a hard chapter to write, for some reason…But anyways, NO, this is not the ending. It's just…a little twist. I actually have no idea where I want to take this, so any suggestions would be great.

Warnings: Stalker! Jet, mind-rape, and other stuff that will get me killed. Eh.

---

_Chapter Two_

_Absolutes_

---

Zuko had never led a life of certainty. Searching out a boy with a blue arrow on his forehead, running towards a future that holds no hope, running away from a past that bears no affection, stumbling only to find himself exactly where he was before. He was never safe.

What if someone found them out?

What if someone knows?

What if he spent the rest of his life living in this hellhole and never fulfilling his true purpose? What the hell was his purpose anyway?

What if…

There were so many things Zuko had to worry about. He had to worry about his honor, his family, his hope, his pride, his dreams and fears and nightmares and fire and burning and bleeding himself into a black mess of pain and terror and shame if he could never be the prince he was—or thought he was, for that matter. Zuko wasn't sure about anything these days.

Sometimes Zuko saw a blur of color, always at the edge of his sight. A flash of brown hair, earthen tones, tan skin. Was that a stem hanging from his lips? He could have sworn that was the flash of blades there. He could feel eyes scrutinizing his every move, every single twitch of muscle, every breath.

Li was not nearly so nervous.

Zuko would like to be Li.

He hissed, pulled his hand away from the hot teapot. "Shit," he whispered, sucking on his finger.

_Fire burns,_ he thinks.

And the irony of it burned in a way that no bending could ever heal.

---

"Jet, I'm worried about this…"

"Worried about what?"

"You! All you know is that the old man had a cup of hot tea—Ah!"

A wince, a clatter, a hand against her cheek, and then Smellerbee was on the dirt floor, her hand pressed against the scratch just missing her eye. Longshot steps between them, careful and cold, his lip just slightly lifted in contempt.

"They're people of the Fire Nation!"

"They're _people_, Jet! I thought we were coming here to start over and—Longshot, no!"

Longshot stops with the point of his arrow just above Jet's eye a moment after Jet moves to strike her again. His face is contorted in a rare show of rage.

_Don't you dare touch her_, his eyes say. _Don't even think about it._

Jet almost spits in his face, but instead he just pushes him off and walks away.

_They don't understand. They'll never understand. _

Jet doesn't understand much himself.

---

The moon was a strange shade of pale green that night.

Jet noticed that Li was especially attractive when his reflection was caught between his sickles and Li's broadswords, flashes of steel like the moon in gold eyes, and he forgets for a full second that there is a war, that there is fire in the other boy—man's—blood, that there is a reason why his sickles rest so easily in his palms. For a full second of hot breath, it is only the two of them, caught in a dance as deadly as poison on a knife poised above his heart.

---

Two days later, the only thing Jet remembers is golden eyes, black hair, and the color of the moon.


End file.
